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The Healthy Beginning

Hello lovelies! I am trying to do a lifestyle change, and I'm starting with small changes for my body. My goal is to lose weight, and not become overweight. So far I've lost fourteen pounds over the past 3 months, and that makes me beyond excited! I wanted to share with you some exercise tips I have for beginners.

Weight has always been an issue in my life. Ever since I was a kid I've been overweight. At the beginning of my 8th grade year I decided that being overweight was not healthy and that I needed to change my habits before I was unable to do anything. It all started out unhealthy, I lost it fast, too fast! I become obsessive over the way I looked and had a warped image of what I saw in the mirror. I did see results but I didn't notice them. I had an eating disorder and when I looked in the mirror all I saw was a 200+ pound girl when in all actuality I weighed 150 pounds. I have no doubt about it that I was becoming anorexic, and had a serious eating disorder. Looking back I remember sitting in classes at school and having serious back pains, it was hunger pains. It felt like the pains you get when you are having appendix issues, it was so bad. I would get obsessive over everything that I ate. I would journal it and log it, and immediately after I would exercise to get all the calories that I had just consumed off. It was so bad that I would blow my friends off so that I could exercise 8+ hours and get every single calorie burned off and more. It was an unhealthy situation, and it ruined me mentally. I always pushed myself around and saw myself as not skinny enough, even when I was losing weight rapidly, I still wasn't good enough. I lost crucial time with my friends, and grew apart from how close I was to them. I kept the weight off for two years, and was still over involved in my lack of eating and excessive exercising. At this time my acne was getting really severe and deep, and that was also affecting my self confidence. My parents began to take notice in my lack of self esteem and insisted that I visit the dermatologist. So my mom made an appointment for me to clear up my skin. It ended up being hormonal acne so we did all these different types of antibiotics that didn't work or that made me really sick. So the next step was to be put on birth control. Gradually I gained weight, and then it added on, until I had realized that I had gained all the weight back and some. That was about 2 years ago, and I've just been kind of really depressed about my weight. I've tried so many fad diets that say lose 10 pounds in 3 days but those are only on a temporary basis. The weight loss is usually put on the next three days.

I've decided to lose weight the right, and healthy way. By eating healthy and exercising a decent amount of time, but not overexercising. I haven't been too obsessive about every pound lost and every calorie burned. Instead I'm focusing on how I look in the mirror, and how I see myself. I'm being realistic with my goals and giving myself plenty of time to lose that weight in. And guess what? I've lost 14 pounds in 3 months, and that makes me so happy!! I'm seeing results by taking care of my body, and being kind to it. So here's how I lost that 14 pounds and my current top picks for all things health related.

FITNESS|

Activity Trackers

These are the best thing since sliced bread. I mean seriously, they are so awesome! I got a Fitbit Flex for graduation, and I use it every single second of the day. The awesome thing about Fitbit is you can download the app and sync your steps onto your phone. You can even add friends who have a Fitbit and do challenges against each other, it is super motivating to involve a little competition. Not only does it track your steps, but it also has the ability to set silent alarms where it vibrates and tells you to wake up; it tracks your sleep and sleep pattern (crazy awesomeness). Also with the Fitbit flex their is the option to get interchangeable bands. I also match my tracker to my outfit, and a tip is you can get them pretty inexpensive on Amazon. I make sure that I walk 5 miles a day and get my steps in otherwise I feel pretty crummy.

Workouts

Cardio- I take the fun approach to fitness and use a couple of video games on my Wii to get my cardio in for the day. I am currently obsessed with Just Dance 3, it has the most intense dances on it and I love the songs. I do the workout program on it, choose the hardest difficulty, and workout until I get the sweat points needed for the day. Just remember in order to get a workout out of it you need to actually move your feet and not just your arms, MOVE YOUR WHOLE BODY! Sometimes if I want a little more difficulty I add leg weights to get more of a workout.

Strength/Pilates- I'm not sure if pilates actually classifies as strength training but it does get pretty intense. For a while I was sticking to the Blogilates workout calendar but honestly I've been slacking off. If you are looking to be super sore and to feel the good kind of sore this is for you. The trainer is so bubbly and adorable, and makes you totally believe in yourself.

NUTRITION|

Food

Honestly I'm not doing anything spectacular with a diet or anything. One thing that did help me was I got on Pinterest and found some 21 Day Fix DIYs, so I didn't buy the program but found sheets on what to eat based on my weight and goals. That really helped because I saw what types of foods I need to eat on a daily basis. Now I try to eat the fewest amount of carbs as possible because they add pounds really quickly to my frame, and focus on eating more portioned meals.

Calorie Count

I use the Fitbit app to count my calories, but there are countless amounts of apps out there specifically for calorie control and counting. Tracking your calories makes it easy to see where you are for the day and how much activity to get in.

So now you know what my health regimen is like right at the moment. If you have any workouts or tips for me to try I would love to hear what you have to say!